


Taking Flight

by lowflyingfruit



Series: The Art of Bird Metaphor [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-04-23 04:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14324298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowflyingfruit/pseuds/lowflyingfruit
Summary: It's been almost two years since Dick started working as Nightwing. It's been almost two years since he found out the Court of Owls was regrouping. And yet everything's been strangely quiet. The biggest problems in the Wayne family are Jason's issues at school.A new vigilante in Gotham and a strange murder are about to change that. Dick, of all people, knows the work of a Talon when he sees it.





	1. Vigilantes, Junior

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to part three! Additional warning this chapter for Jason mentioning his abusive background, including some more extreme corporal punishment. There are also a few slurs in this chapter, some ableist and some misogynist.

“Hey, Wayne! _Wayne!_ ”

The shouts were coming from behind him in the crowded hall. Adam Monfries and his buddies again. Jason thought he might know what this was about. He ignored it.

“ _Todd_!”

People were staring - after a year in this snakepit Bruce called a school, Jason might be used to it, but he didn’t _like_ it any better. Where were the goddamned teachers when they were needed? He wasn’t going to be able to make it to a classroom without straight up bolting. Back on the streets running had been a good way to deal with angry people chasing him. Better to look scared than be dead. Here, though, running made things _worse_. If you ran people picked on you even more. So Jason turned around. It was safe enough to now, since he’d waited until Monfries called him Todd. He’d made his point. “What is it?” he asked, putting on his best bored drawl.

Monfries swaggered up to him, a trio of his usual buddies in tow. From what Jason had learned, the buddies _thought_ they should be on the football team, and they _would_ be on the football team, if it weren’t for the team’s pesky requirement that its members regularly pass tests. A crying shame if ever Jason had heard one. Monfries himself, though…he was the ringleader of this group because he was smart enough to spot a weakness. Not smart enough to get much more than 50% on any given test. Just smart enough to make his words actually hurtful if he tried.

“I heard you finally became the gold-digger your mom wanted to be,” Monfries said.

“Creative,” Jason replied. It took effort to stay calm. This stupid fuck didn’t know anything about his mom. “Insulting. Eight out of ten for originality and execution. I’m emotionally destroyed. Can I go to class and recover from your razor wit now?”

“Trying to impress your new daddy?”

“Whatever. We’ll call that one a seven out of ten. Assuming you can count that high.” Still no sign of bloody useless authority figures. He couldn’t afford to get into another fight. The school wouldn’t do much of anything - because the school was too afraid of losing Bruce’s money - but Bruce himself would want some explanations from Jason. He’d probably end up grounded and forbidden from helping out with Bat-stuff. It wasn’t a scary prospect like being turned over Willis Todd’s knee and walloped with a belt had been, back when he was a real little kid, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

Monfries looked at him, considering, before his face split in a grin he probably thought qualified as ‘malicious’. “Nah, you’re right. How hard _could_ Wayne be to grift? Even that retard Wayne took in managed it. Hey, does that make him your brother?”

Despite himself, Jason’s fists clenched. Strike two. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard people say that sort of stuff about Dick in the past few years. The assholes had never seen him plan a B&E or tear into anything involving tactics and teamwork. It wasn’t Dick’s fault that boogeymen had come out of the Gotham stonework to cut him up every time he looked like he might be contemplating reading a book. Or that the assassin curriculum he’d been working off hadn’t included things like ‘normal human interaction.’

Anyway, he was a lot better at that sort of thing now.

But Dick wouldn’t want him fighting either. As far as Jason could tell, Dick actually didn’t mind people treating him like pretty-face-empty-head, since it meant they weren’t running away screaming. So instead he kept his face blank, sighed heavily, and went to the original point. “Look, I don’t get it, man. If Bruce is supposedly so willing to spend money on me, how does pissing me off accomplish anything for _you_?”

“‘Cause you’re a whore, Todd,” Monfries replied. Through a rising haze of anger, Jason thought it was a surprisingly well-reasoned reply. “You’re a whore and your mother’s a whore.”

That, though - that was it. Strike three. Time to hit back. Metaphorically. Maybe Bruce wouldn’t give him so much of a talking-to. “The only difference between my mother and yours is the quality of coke they could afford,” he said. “Go on, hit me. We’ll see who gets suspended.”

Monfries hit him. So did his buddies. Jason practiced self-defence every day with Batman himself, but he was outnumbered four to one, he had schoolbooks in his arms, and he was wearing a stupid restrictive blazer. There was only so much he could do.

“That looks bad,” the teacher said, when she finally showed up at the scene of the disturbance. Better late than never, technically. Jason had a badly split lip, a black eye, and a shallow cut on his forehead pouring blood down his face, and that was just the visible stuff. His ribs and arms were bruised, but Jason could tell from experience that none of those chumps knew how to beat someone up properly. He’d got off lightly. Still, he knew he was a pretty gory sight. A scrawny kid from a lower class had given Jason his tie to help keep the blood out of his eyes, looking torn between horror and fascination. “We’ll send you on to the hospital, just in case, and call your guardian.”

Jason made sure he was looking the useless teacher right in her useless eyes and gave her a big, bloody, split-lipped smile. The sting was worth it just to rub it in their stupid smug faces. “I think you mean that you’ll call my father,” he said.

 

—

 

The problem with that was, of course, that the school called his father. Worse, the whole adoption thing meant that Jason couldn’t pull the ‘you’re not my real dad’ line out either when Bruce tried to parent him. Though again, there was a genuine upside, because Bruce didn’t get all shocked at seeing Jason’s bashed face and the two stitches they’d put in to close the forehead cut. He just sat down beside him, handed Jason a bottle of water, raised an eyebrow and said, “Again?”

“They hit me first,” Jason said.

“After you goaded them.”

“I didn’t say anything about their mothers that they didn’t say about mine. First.”

Bruce looked at him for a long moment. “Acceptable,” he said. “Though I _do_ want you to protect your head better in these situations.”

“There were four of them!”

“Exactly why you should prioritise protecting your head. From your medical reports it doesn’t look like they knew what they were doing.”

Jason grinned, which hurt. “They kept kicking each other’s shins.”

Bruce returned the trace of a smile. “I’ll handle the school. As for you, Alfred and Dick both know what happened. I’m not going to step in.”

He flopped back in the hospital bed and groaned. Dick wasn’t the worst brother he could have had, stupid avian nicknames aside, but he was a worse mother hen than _Alfred_. Overprotective didn’t even _start_ to describe him. The second costumed terror of the Gotham night freaked the hell out if Jason got a papercut. The less said about the first time Jason went to the dentist (they were scary!) the better. Jason coming out on the wrong side of a fight at school…

The thought seemed to occur to Bruce at the same time. “I’ll stop Dick from visiting your classmates,” he conceded. Which meant he _wasn’t_ going to be protected from Dick’s hovering. “He’ll be along once his classes are finished.” It was a minor miracle that Bruce persuaded Dick not to drop everything and come visit Jason right now.

After a minute of silence, Bruce asked, “Was it about the adoption?”

“Yeah.”

“The same boys as last month?”

“There was overlap.”

“Do you want to change schools again?”

“Fuck no!” At Bruce’s puzzled expression, Jason explained. “I only lasted a year at the last one. When I started at Gotham Academy, all the rich kids _knew_. From polo club, or skiing school, or wherever the fuck rich kids meet rich kids. They were even worse ‘cause they thought they could scare me off. I’m not doing that again. They’re just starting to get the point now.”

It didn’t get Bruce to look any happier, but for all Bruce was a stupid rich kid himself, he was one of the stupid rich kids who knew it. He usually listened to Jason about stuff like this. Jason repaid the favour by listening to Bruce when he had advice about handling rich people. “I just don’t like to see you so unhappy,” he said. “Even Dick -“

He cut himself off, but too late. Jason had heard it already. Even Dick had friends, and Dick had been brainwashed into thinking he was an object for a good half decade or so. That was the _other_ shitty thing about having Dick for a brother. It wasn’t his fault, but…he was pretty much good at everything. Worse, Jason couldn’t just put it down to Dick living some sort of charmed life, because he’d _seen_ Dick fuck up socialising with people, shaking with stress after his college classes, and once or twice in full emotional shutdown ‘cause something reminded him of the Court. Then he’d seen Dick make second and third efforts and succeed. He didn’t have the decency to ever really fail at anything, even after all he’d been through. Which didn’t leave Jason much excuse.

Also, Jason had never seen him with so much as a pimple, and that above all things was massively unfair. Not easy to explain to Bruce, though, who seemed to have made a similar unholy bargain with the gods of skincare.

“Yeah, well,” Jason said. “Statistically they can’t be all bad. I’ll find someone half decent to hang out with eventually.”

“Good. Consider it a project.”

“What, should I just put it on my to-do list? Add it to my summer homework?” Actually, he better be careful with that sort of joke. Bruce would take it literally, and Jason would never in a million years be sure whether it was because Bruce really didn’t understand, or because he liked having a joke at Jason’s expense from time to time.

“If you can’t make friends in school, for whatever reason, then I would like to see you develop interests outside school,” Bruce replied.

Jason eyed him suspiciously. “You’d let me do that? No restrictions?” Up until now, approved extra-curricular stuff had all been based around his stupid school. This had the sound of opportunity. He could make use of this.

“Within reason. We’ll have to discuss any security risks.”

His mind whirred. An opportunity to get away from all the rich stuff and actually _do_ things. He worked in the Bat-cave most nights, helping out with all the Batman stuff (and Nightwing stuff, when Nightwing was in Gotham). He’d solved more cases than a lot of detectives. He wanted to do more stuff like that. Problem was, no way they’d ever let him. No way in hell. He’d have to do an end-run around Bruce and Dick, only without friends to start a team with. “I want to do something useful,” he said slowly. “Volunteering, maybe.”

Bruce nodded. “Any Wayne Foundation organisation would take you, if that was what you wanted.”

“It’s not.” So maybe his shiny new adoptive father _did_ have more money than he knew what to do with. That didn’t mean Jason had to be okay with having money spent on him and opportunities found for him. He wanted to do these things himself. “Let me try and find something myself first.”

“Very well. I trust you’ll be sensible with the responsibility.”

This was good. He had some ideas - they might take some extra effort to put into practice, because a lot of the places he wanted to check out might not take volunteers under college age - but they’d help convince Bruce, at least, that he could start getting ready to do the real Batman stuff too.

He thought about it all the way home, so deeply lost in planning that he barely noticed the persistent stinging of his cuts and the aching of his ribs. Right up until Dick spotted him, practically screeched in alarm, and jammed an icepack on his face.

“Lay off,” he grumbled, swatting Dick’s hands away. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Are you sure?” Dick asked. “It looks bad. Bruce said you were in a fight.”

He kept hovering, and Jason knew it was because he was hoping that this time the fight wasn’t because someone said something cruel about him. Jason didn’t bother trying to lie (stupid family of ninja-detectives, ruining his teenage prerogative), just shrugged irritably. “What’re you doing here anyway? I thought you were off with the Titans until next Monday.”

“Kori got a last-minute job and Garth’s still recovering from the last big fight. We rescheduled.” He beamed at Jason. “So I’m patrolling in Gotham until next Monday. Do _you_ have much homework?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw Bruce raise an eyebrow at him. Punishment, right. No interference in Dick’s mother-henning. “Not a lot,” Jason said, resigned to his fate. “What’re you drilling me in this time?”

“Running away,” Dick said severely.

At least he wasn’t following Jason around school to make sure nobody laid a finger on him. Jason wouldn’t put it past him. Looked like he was getting off lightly in more than one sense.

 

—

 

Barbara had been preparing for this for a long time. All the money she’d earned since she was seventeen - first from waiting tables, then from freelancing cybersecurity work - had gone into something related to this, even when she hadn't consciously planned it out. Tonight, she had all the stuff she needed, and her algorithms had flagged a case for her attention. Something that matched a greater pattern in the GCPD’s files, based on the facts.

Barbara was old enough to remember what it was like before. Back then, her dad didn’t let her open the windows, or get in the car first, or check their mail, or walk to school. That was just because of what the other _cops_ might do. She definitely wasn’t allowed out at night or near certain neighbourhoods. Then Batman had shown up, and things had started to _change_. The officers who made her dad so mad all the time got fired, and he got promoted. The list of streets Barbara was allowed to walk down went way up. And the people she met weren’t anywhere near as afraid anymore. It was the criminals who were getting scared instead.

For the longest time she’d dreamed of doing what Batman did, but she was a kid. There was no way a kid could do all that. So Barbara had put that dream on the shelf and focused on studying. She’d got her degree in forensic science, and another in computer science. She had a plan. Her dad hadn’t liked it, but Barbara had gone ahead anyway. She wanted to be a detective.

Then, just when Barbara enrolled in the police academy, Nightwing appeared. He was even more camera-shy than Batman, and didn’t hang around to hear people thank him for his assistance, but as best anyone could tell, he was around Barbara’s age. Maybe younger.

All her childhood plans came back in an instant. If he could do it, why couldn’t she?

What had followed that realisation was a year of preparation, physical, mental, and technological, all targeted to this final goal. On her best computers, she got searches running through GCPD cases for patterns in crime. She’d learned martial arts since she was five, but even so she doubted her hand-to-hand skills were good enough for a lot of direct fighting. Yet. She was working on it. Stealth and speed were going to be her best friends - she was an excellent gymnast and a better free-runner.

She put her new body armour on - all grey and dark blue, the best colours for stealth in Gotham - and headed to the North Side Morgue. She had a murder victim to investigate.

Barbara had been past the morgue a dozen times, but never inside. She used their side access door, bypassing keypad and security camera alike, and slipping into the offices. That wasn’t a bad place to start. She hunted down the autopsy report she was after, still on the coroner’s desk. Johnny Tran, known to the Gotham police and just about everyone else as “Three-Eyes” for the distinctive scar on his forehead. One of the better forgers in town, if you caught him sober, which hadn’t been often going by the state of his liver.

The detectives officially on the case thought he must have finally pissed off a client. Barbara’s algorithms spotted more. Now she was here to see for herself. She hauled the body out and pulled back the sheet, heart beating at the thought of potential discovery. It would be so embarrassing to get caught on her first night out. She smashed the feeling down, because she had work to do.

Tran’s throat had been slit. It was a neat, precise wound, its very cleanness suggesting Tran had been still when the cut was made. Yet it had also been done by someone standing in _front_ of him, with a rising backhand strike that had found the big veins easily. The killer, whoever they were, had taken Tran by surprise. They had a steady hand and plenty of experience. And they had a very sharp knife. One cut, one kill, no chance for Tran to fight back or shout for help.

There were some older bruises on the body, and a still-healing cracked rib. Apparently Tran had been in a bar fight the week before his death. The police thought that whoever he’d insulted had come back to finish the job.

Barbara thought her algorithms were right. This was more professional than you usually saw in a bar brawl. This was cold and impersonal.

She let herself out and headed to a nearby rooftop to check her information without the risk of getting caught red-handed. This case had methodological similarities to half a dozen unsolved murders from - huh. They were old cases. The oldest was nine years old, the most recent six years ago. The fatal wounds on the victims in those cases were near identical, though there was a trend of those wounds growing cleaner and more precise. The same sharp knife, the same rising backhand. The bodies had been moved after death in all those cases, though, whereas Tran had died undisturbed in his shop.

Her musing was interrupted by a shout for help across the street. The other part of vigilante work. She peered over the edge to see a mugging in action. Nothing she couldn’t handle. She raced to a better angle, and _jumped_ , feet coming down squarely in the mugger’s back, knocking him over. Barbara rolled and came to her feet between criminal and victim. “Run,” she advised the hapless tourist, as the mugger tried to work out what hit him. “I’ll deal with this.”

She left him tied to a lamppost and called the police. Then she left by the same rooftop she’d dropped off, grinning behind her mask. She couldn’t get too carried away with her first vigilante success, though. She still had work to do tonight.


	2. A Bluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightwing and Batman team up for a case; Barbara deals with the daylight side of a new identity.

When they were patrolling, Batman said, “You don’t have to worry about Robin as much as you do.” Robin. Jason. Bruce had picked that up as a way to refer to Jason while they were both in costume. “He’s growing up.”

“He was hurt,” Nightwing protested. Dick had never been to school, not like that, not even before the Court, and from everything Jason said it didn’t sound very nice. Alfred and Bruce said that he’d probably be happier when he got to college, but Dick had nothing to compare it to. _He_ liked his college.

“He knows how to handle himself against bullies like that. Let him.”

Dick didn’t reply. Jason had needed stitches. He didn’t like it. Just because Jason could handle it didn’t necessarily mean he should handle it. Nobody should be hitting Jason at all, but Bruce had told him last month that he wasn’t allowed to follow Jason to school and make sure. It was creepy, apparently, as Jason would put it. Even now the thought made Dick scowl to himself. He just wanted to make sure Jason didn’t get hurt. He did pretty much the same for Bruce during patrols now. That wasn’t creepy, though, apparently.

Instead of say any of that, he leapt to the next rooftop, relishing the breeze on his face and the rush of even the smallest leap between buildings. He loved this. Just going on patrol, whether or not they stopped any crimes, was one of his favourite things in the world.

They were headed towards Joker territory tonight, Dick realised. Bruce hadn’t let him come along on a Joker mission before. The Joker was jealous of Nightwing, Bruce said.

In response to Dick’s questioning look, Bruce said, “The Joker’s not there. He’s laying low for some reason. We’re trying to scare a few of his minions into giving up his location.” He looked at Dick and added, “I’m going to need you to play the heavy for me. The Joker prepares his people for my usual tactics and punishes those who give in harshly. Are you prepared?”

Scaring people. Dick’s least favourite part of Nightwing work. He preferred rescuing people. But he was good at scaring people, he knew it was important to work as part of a team, and he didn’t have to kill them when he finished. He just needed a second to ready himself. “I can do it. Air or ground?”

“Whichever’s convenient.”

They stopped at an old apartment building. The Joker’s men had taken over an apartment on the third floor, which had good access to surrounding rooftops as well as the street, while the fact that it wasn’t on the top floor made approach from above just a little more difficult. “I’ll take air,” Dick said. Crawling around vents wasn’t as easy as it had been when he wa younger, but he was still better at it than Bruce.

“I’ll take the door,” Bruce said. “Wait for my mark.”

Dick nodded, and leapt to the fire escape on the fourth floor. He could go right through a third floor window from there. Two minutes passed, then three. Bruce went for a noisy entry, bursting through the door. That meant Dick should make a more unobtrusive entrance. He climbed down to the window and opened it, rather than kicking through. All attention was on Batman, as the spokesman for this group bellowed, “We’re not going to tell you _shit_!”

That sounded like Dick’s cue.

He took out a knife. He only carried two, as Nightwing, and used them as tools rather than weapons. Bruce was the only one who’d noticed him. He slipped in, and without a word put his knife to the rearmost minion’s throat. He didn’t use the edge, since he kept his knives sharp, just touched metal to flesh. The man froze up, too scared to move. Good. That was less dangerous than someone who thrashed. Dick’s own heart raced with the adrenaline.

“It’s five against one,” the leader was saying.

“Guys,” the man Dick was menacing choked out. “ _Guys_.”

The other four men jerked around. One of them swore, unholstering his gun. “Nah,” the leader said, keeping his nerve. Barely. Dick could see the sweat forming on his forehead. He was scared too, and a little more would break him as well. “He won’t do it. He’s with the Bat.”

Dick laughed quietly and flipped its knife. _Now_ the edge was against skin. “Five against two,” it said. Then, careful not to give the man it held anything but the lightest of scratches, slowly drew the blade across his throat in a demonstration of a far more dangerous cut. “Four against two.”

“He’s crazy,” its target pled. “Just tell him!”

It laughed again.

There was a long silence. It knew they could see its smile. Bruce didn’t say anything. Bruce knew he wouldn’t kill. Bruce trusted him. Bruce would stop him before anything too bad happened. Dick’s hand stayed steady on the knife.

“Please,” Dick’s victim choked out.

“All right!” the leader said. “We don’t know exactly where the boss is, he doesn’t tell us. Somewhere on the waterfront. That’s all we know, I swear!”

Dick eased up on the knife, and before the others could react by shooting him, shoved his hostage at the man with the steadiest aim and dropped to the ground ready to scythe someone else’s legs out from under them. Above him, he heard the impact of Bruce’s fist with the spokesman’s jaw. The fight didn’t last long after that, and soon they were both heading to the rooftop they’d started from, police on their way to arrest whoever was there. “Are you all right?” Bruce asked, once they were out of earshot.

He took a few deep breaths to re-centre himself, and let his hands shake for a few seconds. This usually happened after he played bad cop. Dick hated scaring people, because Talon liked it. Talon had been trained to like it. Talon was not allowed to feel anger or sadness, but it had been encouraged to enjoy itself in certain situations. In the Court, hunting people had been relief from harsh, monotonous training. The Court liked their enemies to die in pain and fear, and so Talon had been rewarded well if it frightened its victims before it killed them. For drawing things out a little before a successful kill, Talon had usually been given some fresh fruit and an hour of training to its own preferences, rather than that of its trainers. It wasn’t long before the hunt and the terror it inspired were as much a reward as the rest.

Neither he nor Bruce had realised how deep that training ran, not until he’d started as Nightwing and he had to chase down and scare people routinely. They were working on it, but it was slow going.

“Fine,” Dick said. Already the shakes were fading and he felt more himself again. He was a him, a person, not an it. The Court might have conditioned him, but they didn’t own him. Dick proved it every time Nightwing threatened without killing. “Can we go stop some muggers now?”

“That sounds like a very good idea,” Bruce said.

 

—

 

Just about every muscle Barbara had was screaming at her right now, and it was glorious. Oh man, she could totally do this every night. This endorphin rush was the best. She snuck right back into her tiny studio apartment, stripped down, and showered, before flopping into her bed and sleeping better than she had in years.

She woke up sore, of course. Nothing that a bit of stretching couldn’t help. She’d go out again tonight, then give it a two-day break before she tried going out on a work night.

So incredible.

Barbara floated through most of the rest of the day, even as she did her usual weekend chores. Her mind went to potential patrol routes - she didn’t think she wanted to run into Batman _too_ early in her career, no thank you - and her very first case as a vigilante. There were so many reasons to murder a forger who incidentally pissed off everyone in every bar in a three-block radius of his house. So many angles to run down. If she went with the theory that this was a professional dispute rather than a personal one, clients were the obvious place to start -

“You’re drifting off again,” her father said. He didn’t look that annoyed. More amused. It wasn’t the first time Barbara had done that to him in her life.

“Oh! Sorry, dad.”

Happy as she was, she had to _focus_. She’d get busted in a matter of days if she couldn’t control herself. Part of that was getting through her usual Saturday late lunch with her dad _without_ tipping him off that she was going to be Gotham’s newest vigilante.

“The Academy treating you well?” he asked.

She snorted. “As if they wouldn’t.” Hard to hide that she was the Commissioner’s daughter. She’d done her best to keep that from mattering, and her dad had been pretty good about it, but she’d never bothered actually hiding that they were related.

Her dad tipped his head in acknowledgement. “I just worry about you. You know that.”

“Yes, dad.” She smiled to show him she wasn’t really annoyed. “What about you, though? _You_ look tired.”

She hoped he’d tell her some of what Batman was doing these days. He didn’t often, but sometimes he relented. Barbara was pretty sure that outside of Batman’s own inner circle, whoever they were, there was nobody in Gotham who knew Batman better than Jim Gordon. And just because she was doing the vigilante thing herself now didn’t mean she wasn’t still curious.

“This and that,” her father said. “The Mayor’s office don’t like their polling numbers, so they’re getting ready for a new tough-on-crime campaign. Damn fools. They’re going to have my people on the streets with targets on their backs for the likes of the Penguin and Two-Face, while they get rid of all the programs that help dry up recruitment for their gangs.”

He went on, an old and familiar rant to Barbara. As Commissioner, her father had outlasted a few Mayors, and as he said, they never got any smarter. _They’ve only got one idea for ‘solving’ crime_ , Barbara mouthed along, _and it’s about as good as that damned metaphorical hammer_.

“Elections are coming up,” she said bracingly as her father’s rant reached its conclusion. “Who knows, you might be rid of this lot in a few months.”

Her father snorted. “I can hope.” Then he shook his head. “On top of all that, Nightwing’s in town again.”

Now that was more like what she wanted to hear. “Is there a problem with that?”

This time, her father looked around cautiously. As if his own kitchen might be bugged. “Say what you like about Batman,” he said, “but you can rely on him. He doesn’t kill. He’s been tested plenty. No matter what, he doesn’t kill. I can’t say that I’ve seen much of Nightwing, but I’ve seen men in lock-up, career criminals, absolutely convinced that Nightwing would have killed them if Batman hadn’t been there watching. There’s another shoe to drop there. I don’t want him leaving a trail of corpses in Gotham.”

“Have you said that to Batman?”

“I had to.” Her dad looked frustrated. “We’re talking about people’s lives here.”

“And?”

“You think he listens to me?” He shook his head again. “I don’t like it.”

Her father refused to say anything more on the topic. It sounded like a fairly serious disagreement. Barbara made careful mental note of that. If she didn’t want to run into Batman, not until she’d established her own reputation and credibility, she might want to meet Nightwing even less. On general principles.

The last thing she had to do before going out again was check to see if there was anything incriminating on social media. She had no plans to be discovered because someone on Twitter posted a picture of her climbing her fire escape to her window. It was a bit difficult, since she hadn’t picked a vigilante name nor would anyone have had the time to give her a vigilante name, but there was nothing that looked _too_ bad online. A pair of blurry photographs, both mistaking her for Nightwing (she was far too small to be Batman, nor did she have the cape), and some discussion on the most serious of Gotham’s Batman-watching forums.

Even then, the forum’s best analyst (who had at some point been dubbed _David Battenborough_ for their calm, reasoned analysis of every purported Batman sighting to hit the internet) didn’t have anything more conclusive than _possibly Nightwing_ to say about those pictures. Looked like yesterday’s mugging victim hadn’t pinned her as a vigilante, or if they had, Barbara’s gender hadn’t filtered through yet.

In any case, her Twitter nightmare was not a reality. Her identity was safe, so far. Barbara changed, warmed up, and headed right back out into the Gotham night. She had more crime to stop.

 

—

 

It was never any good hiding when something had gone wrong on patrol. Not from Alfred, and not from Jason. Given Dick’s own issues, it wasn’t possible, either. Neither of them missed it when Dick didn’t start warming down when they returned to the cave, and instead headed up into the rigging for an aerial routine much like the Flying Graysons had once performed.

Bruce had tried for years to find video of Dick’s parents performing and failed. They were both resigned to Bruce remembering more of John and Mary Grayson’s performances than Dick. Just one of the many unfairnesses in Dick’s life.

“Bad night?” Jason asked Bruce, eyes fixed on Dick. He looked well, considering the injuries he’d sustained at school. No signs of infection. It would be tomorrow that Jason started looking poorly, as bruises darkened and changed colour. Fortunately, he had the weekend to recover. Bruce still had to call the school and sort out whether Jason was suspended or not.

“Minor issues. Nothing he can’t handle.” He looked up at Dick too, flipping between ropes in moves designed only to be beautiful, never lethal. He hadn’t even been close to killing the man, and he’d judged the reactions of his hostage superbly. It was only the mindset. “He just wants to ground himself a bit more.”

“And the other guys? Could they handle it?”

“No lasting harm done.” Though he wouldn’t be asking Dick to do this again for a while. He trusted Nightwing, Nightwing had proved worthy of that trust, and Bruce had no intention of pushing him until he broke.

Jason appeared satisfied with the answer. “What’s the deal, then?” he asked. “He still got those exploding balloons?”

“The Joker doesn’t like repeating tricks. Otherwise, hard to say. He clearly doesn’t want us to find him yet. We didn’t make much headway.” Not on the case. There were a few muggers and drug dealers regretting their career choices, tonight. One of the people they’d rescued from their predicament had thanked Nightwing for his assistance, and Nightwing had even managed to accept those thanks. He’d been glowing with it for the next half hour. Bruce couldn’t bring himself to regret the relative lack of progress. “We’ll have to search the waterfront more thoroughly in the next few days.”

At least Dick came down from the rigging after a while and smiled at Jason, before resuming his usual end-of-night routine. Once he was gone, Jason said, “Your Owl-computer beeped while you were on patrol.”

Bruce sighed. It was getting more frequent. “What is it this time?”

“Shifting money around,” Jason reported. “Personal funds, nobody’s company money, and I couldn’t see where to.”

“I’ll get Dick on it tomorrow,” Bruce promised. He kept Dick well informed of the Owl investigations these days, at Dick’s continued insistence, even when Dick was working with his team. Some nights, though…some nights it still wasn’t a good idea to mention the slow regrouping happening just out of their sight. Tonight, it would be better for them all if Dick got some sleep first.

The next morning, he started a belated end-of-night report. The night’s sleep had him thinking again of their brief confrontation with the Joker’s men. Had it been the best idea to have Nightwing do the threatening? The Joker was obsessed with Batman, Bruce knew that, and resented all competition for Batman’s attention. The last few times Batman had confronted the Joker, he’d made…comments. Not quite threats, but edging ever closer. Bringing Nightwing along, bringing him to the Joker’s attention, that could go wrong. That could make Nightwing a target.

So too could catering to the Joker’s obsession, and keeping Nightwing away. Give the Joker an inch and he’d take the whole city. The Joker didn’t own him. Batman had no intention of allowing the Joker to so much as _think_ that he owned him.

This sort of worry was quickly becoming familiar to him. Bruce hadn’t been wrong in thinking that Nightwing would quickly attract attention. He worried about it all, whether it was the positive press the Titans got and how Dick handled the adoration, Jim Gordon’s mistrust of Nightwing’s stability, the determination from the likes of Two-Face, the Penguin, and Black Mask to hurt Batman through Nightwing, or, worst of all save the Court of Owls itself, Slade Wilson’s offers of employment and partnership to Dick. Deathstroke didn’t know about the Court specifically, but he knew assassins when he saw them - and according to Dick, the fact that Dick had escaped his former masters and fought their conditioning only made him _more_ attractive a prospect. Dick was quietly petrified of the man. Bruce had promised himself that he’d break Wilson’s legs at the next opportunity.

As he usually did, Bruce finished the mental list of all the new things that could hurt Dick with a reminder that Dick was a grown man now. Almost old enough to drink, even. He was more capable than ever of defending himself, both physically and socially. He could choose his own path in life.

Bruce just…worried.

By comparison, Jason was a delight. Not that Bruce didn’t worry about him either. He knew the social aspects of school were difficult for Jason. Highschool would pass, though, and even if Jason found no friends there, he would in college. Of that Bruce was certain. It was just these next few years.

Unless Jason, too, decided that he wanted a costume and a career as a vigilante.

“No matter how you stare at that report, you cannot change the facts of the case,” Alfred said. “You’re fretting again, Master Bruce.

“Thinking, Alfred. Thinking.”

“As you will, sir.”

Bruce wouldn’t have believed his own words either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another way-too-long gap between updates. Thanks SO MUCH for all your comments, even if I've been slack about replying lately. They do mean a lot. As do the kudos and bookmarks!


	3. New Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick and Jason each socialise in strange circumstances.

It was the sixth night out of her vigilante career, and Barbara was wondering if she’d ever stop counting them. She doubted it. This was addictive.

She still believed that the work the GCPD did was important, and it wasn’t like she was going to quit the Academy now. But this - she didn’t have to hand in paperwork to a superior officer who’d file it under I for Inaction, she didn’t have to turn away when she knew, she _knew_ , a crime had been committed, she just had to focus on solving crimes and helping people. Now, if only she could think of a half-decent alias.

Barbara leapt from rooftop to rooftop, looking for someone who might need her help. Or someone who didn’t want to see a vigilante. She wasn’t picky. She passed over workers leaving the office late, people going out for dinner, groups of teenagers loitering before going to the clubs. Nothing that needed her attention. So she started lurking around the fire escapes in the darker alleys. Still just petty crime so far; she wasn’t experienced enough yet to take on the bigger name villains or organised crime.

Later, though. Patience was a virtue. Eventually she’d be able to fight people like Two-Face and the Riddler, but not right yet, not unless she had to.

From her vantage point she watched a man watching the crowds. A thief, and one inexperienced enough to be dangerous. If he was rattled, he might pull a weapon rather than simply run away and try again. Barbara circled around to what she thought would be his most likely escape route. It didn’t provide such a good view of the crowds themselves, so she’d have less warning when he did make his move, but no site had everything.

It was a matter of minutes only. There was a shout, and then the pounding of running feet, slapping against the pavement.

He was _fast_. Much faster than she was expecting.

Barbara swung down and overshot her mark, and the thief slipped past her. She resisted the urge to curse. It wasn’t professional. Nothing to do but turn and run after him. He was fast, but so was she, and she’d back her fitness over his. Behind her, she could hear a bit of a commotion. Not much; Gothamites saw muggings like that often enough.

Her quarry skidded around a corner. Barbara sacrificed a few yards to leap to a fire escape. Fear was important, and people chasing you from above was scarier than people just running behind you. She gained again, above the thief this time. Barbara got into striking distance -

\- and a shadow streaked past her, knocking the thief off his feet. _What the -?_

Not a shadow. A man. Before Barbara could blink he was crouching over the thief she’d been chasing, wresting the bag from his grip. He wasn’t Batman - no cape, and he was far too short. Barbara thought she might have an inch or two on this intruder. But the black bodysuit with the blue markings identified him even from behind. This was Nightwing. The one her father was worried about killing people, if Batman wasn’t around.

There was no sign of Batman. Barbara quickly checked her surroundings, just in case. No luck.

So Barbara called down to him, “Excuse you, I had that under control.”

Nightwing put a foot on the thief’s chest and angled himself so he could see her better. The mask made it harder to tell, but he was definitely around Barbara’s age or a little younger. Over the mask’s top edge, his eyebrows deepened into a furrow. “So did I,” he said. “Did I do something wrong?”

Something about how he said it put shivers down her spine, and she searched for the right word. In a few seconds, she’d found it - he said it innocently, as if he genuinely didn’t know. Yikes. That wasn’t the sort of thing she ever associated with supposedly hard-bitten vigilantes of the Gotham night. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s rude to cut in like that?” she demanded. If he focused on her, he wasn't going to kill anyone. Except possibly her, but...she didn't think so, actually.

“No.” Still frowning, he said, “I’m sorry?” The thief made an attempt to wriggle out from under Nightwing’s foot, but the vigilante wasn’t so easily unbalanced. He dug in his heel and the thief wheezed out a pained breath, before stabbing at Nightwing’s leg. Nightwing kicked the knife out of the thief’s hand and had him re-pinned almost before Barbara could blink.

She took a chance and dropped down to ground level. He didn’t _seem_ like a crazed murderer, and she still had no intention of getting in arm’s reach. She stayed well back of that, too, because he was probably faster than she was, and definitely better practiced. “Well, it _is_ rude. So don’t do it. I was doing fine by myself.”

“Should I let him up then?” Nightwing asked.

“No,” Barbara sighed. “You’ve got it.”

Nightwing nodded, and removed his foot from the thief’s chest again, only to kick him in the chin, hard and accurate. It probably hadn’t broken the man’s jaw, but he wasn’t getting back up after that either. “Did you want to return the bag, then?”

“I didn’t do the work for it. Look, aren’t you going to ask the obvious questions here?”

“Your name?” When Barbara nodded, he shrugged. “I thought you might want to introduce yourself instead. I _was_ told you don’t make friends with someone by interrogating them. And I think I know what you’re doing out here, so I didn’t think I needed to ask that either.”

This was not how Barbara thought her first encounter with Batman or his offsider might go. Not in the slightest. And she still wasn’t getting the slightest hint of deception from Nightwing, not even a little trace of mockery. “Just so you know, it’s manners to ask anyway, sometimes.”

“Okay. I’m Nightwing. What’s your name?”

“I haven’t picked one yet,” she admitted. “It’s a harder decision than it seems.”

He hummed his agreement and leaned over to put restraints on the stunned thief. “If you don’t choose, someone else will choose for you,” he warned. “I’ll return the bag. Why don’t you call the police to pick this guy up?”

It apparently wasn’t a question, because he was back up a fire escape and heading for the roof before she could respond. Barbara glared at his retreating back for a bit, then gave in and made the call. The thief was too badly hurt to just leave here. But then she ran, as fast as she could. She didn’t want Nightwing to come back and follow her.

 

—

 

Dick returned the bag, then returned to where he’d left the lady who’d wanted to stop the thief too. She wasn’t there anymore. Dick hadn’t expected her to be. So he headed up to the rooftops and started trying to follow her.

She had a good head start. He’d have to work for this. Fortunately, he had help. He hit his comm. “Robin?”

“Yeah, what?” Jason was cranky. Bruce had compromised with his school over the fight, and though he’d been suspended for two days, it was an out-of-school suspension. Jason hated missing school. Dick had to admit it was nice to have him around while Dick himself was in Gotham rather than off with the Titans. Still, he was back at school tomorrow, and that would make him happier.

“I need cameras on someone. A woman with a mask. White, a bit taller than me, wearing grey, red hair under a cap. Start from my location.”

Jason groaned. “It’s so slow,” he complained.

“If you find any interesting crimes while you’re searching, let me know,” Dick said. “Will that be less boring?”

“Barely,” Jason said, but Dick could hear him typing in the background. “Any ideas what routes are most likely for this person to take?”

Dick ruled out the path he’d taken to and from the mugging victim, which still left a lot of Gotham for Jason to work on finding a camera trail for. He did his best to help, taking to the rooftops. If he were in her position, he’d stay away from anywhere that mattered for a while, trying to lose any potential trails. The lady hadn’t been _really_ comfortable on the rooftops, not like him or Bruce, but she’d looked like she knew what she was doing in principle, and she’d had at least some practice. She wouldn’t go right back home. She’d still be out there, which meant he could find her.

He didn’t have to scare her, either. He just wanted to talk. Hopefully before Bruce found her, because he didn’t think Bruce would like someone else doing what they did, in Gotham.

Dick got it, though. He’d just wanted to help, same as all the other Titans. If she could, and she wanted to, Dick didn’t see why she shouldn’t.

“Why am I looking for this person anyway?” Jason asked.

“She was chasing a mugger.”

“In a mask?”

“Some armour too. Not very much, though.”

He didn’t need to see Jason to know that he was frowning as he asked, “About how old is this woman?”

“A bit older than me. Hard to say. You got something?” It would be lucky if he did. Tracking through cameras in the heart of the city took time.

But Jason only said, “Just curious.”

That made Dick frown. Did Jason want to help as well? That was different to the lady. Jason wasn’t grown up yet. He should at least finish school first, and then train more. He hadn’t really used the rooftops since he came to Wayne Manor, and though he was getting good at self-defence, Bruce had refused to teach him anything too aggressive. It hadn’t stopped Jason _trying_ to learn, but it was much slower without a teacher.

He mulled it over as he circled the area, spiralling out from where he’d left the masked lady, and keeping an ear to the police radio. If there was something happening nearby, maybe she’d go there? Half an hour passed before Jason said, “Okay, I think I’ve got something. Head south along King Street.”

Dick followed his directions, heading for an area of Gotham with a lot of small office blocks. It was a little seedy, not like the tall and shiny buildings only a few blocks away. “I got a glimpse of her not far from here,” Jason said, “But someone also called in a murder. I figure this is your best chance while I keep running the cameras down.”

Probably true, even if they didn’t tend to go to murders the police had already found unless there was something actually unusual about them. “I’ll check it out, then. Thank you, Robin.”

The nickname didn’t even make Jason groan, but Dick would have bet he was scowling. Adorable. He broke into the relevant office building with a smile on his face.

It lasted until he got to the scene of the crime, where the scent of blood hit his nose, heavy and familiar. That sobered him up.

He slunk through the building, avoiding its minimal security, and keeping an ear out for any other intruders. The police were outside, waiting for forensics and detectives. Getting past them was easy. The later at night it got, the easier it was.

There was a faint scrabbling from inside one of the big vents. Dick whipped around, bolas at the ready, but it was only the masked lady. She glared at him and said, quietly, “What are you doing here? Did you follow me?”

“Yes,” Dick said. “I don’t want to hurt you. I wanted to make sure you were staying safe. Starting out can be hard.”

There was a long silence, and then she said, “You want to be friends with me?”

“I’d like that,” Dick said. “But first there’s this murder in the next room. We should do something about that first.”

The masked lady nodded. “From what I heard, it’s a lot like another case I’ve been keeping an eye on. I wanted to see the scene for myself.”

“Let’s do it, then.” With that, he slipped into the room containing the crime scene itself. The scent of blood was even stronger here. As he rounded the desk, he saw the body, and stopped in his tracks.

He didn’t know who the dead man was, but he recognised what killed him. The single rising slash across the throat, clean cut like only the sharpest knives made, surgically precise. How could Dick not recognise that style?

That was the work of a Talon.

 

—

 

Most days, Jason would prefer to be at school. Other days, he wished the building would sink into the ground so he didn’t have to attend. Today was one of the latter. He was sick of the horrified looks his classmates kept shooting his banged-up face. He was of the opinion that if they didn’t want to see the bruises and the stitches, they should step in to help when two-bit junior thugs were kicking the crap out of him.

He was also worried about Dick. That idiot had come back last night pale and quiet, when while he’d been chasing that wanna-bat girl, and then nothing. Dick had refused to speak about it, even to Bruce or Alfred. Not for lack of trying on Bruce’s part, but Alfred shook his head at him and Bruce had backed off for the time being.

It was a bad sign.

Jason had debated with himself whether to tell Bruce about the girl who was muscling in on the Batman gig, but decided against it. He didn’t know much more than that she was out there. Dick was the one who knew. He’d tell someone eventually. He couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut most of the time. Either that, or the girl would run into Bruce, and then he’d deal with it.

He was still musing about it when his math teacher interrupted his thoughts. “And have you done the class exercise for today, Mr Todd?”

Only about fifteen minutes ago. “Yes, Mr Norman,” he said. “I did the extension work, too.” Math wasn’t his favourite subject by a long shot, but Bruce wouldn’t accept him actually slacking off. He tolerated Jason appearing to slack off in class when he’d actually done the work.

Mr Norman, on the other hand, was the sort of teacher who preferred students to look busy than be busy. Which was stupid, if you asked Jason. He frowned suspiciously until Jason showed him his notebook. Why did school have to come with teachers and students? He mused on _that_ instead, until lunchtime.

Monfries and his pals were still suspended. True to his word, Bruce had talked to the school and defended him. Jason had got two days; those jackasses had got a week. In-school. Who knew, they might even learn something, though that was a long shot. He did his best to ignore the continual muttering about his messed-up face.

That was, until someone approached him. A skinny kid, a few years younger than Jason - what was he even _doing_ at this school, had he skipped a grade or two? - and a total bully magnet. Jason knew them when he saw them. The preppiest haircut Jason had ever seen half-covered a blue-eyed gaze halfway between wariness and an uncomfortably direct curiosity. He had his school uniform perfectly creased and buttoned up correctly, tie pulled up so it practically choked him, and his shoes were as shiny as the day they were bought. _Someone_ here had to have belted him, on general principles.

“Excuse me,” the kid said, all soft voice and impeccable upper-class pronunciation, “I don’t know if you remember me, Mr Todd, but I was hoping that you were all right. After what happened.”

Mr Todd. He had to be kidding. Jason scrambled to place the kid’s face, and came up with it at last. “You gave me your tie,” he said. “For the blood. Shit, I’m sorry. I washed it, but I forgot to bring it with me.”

“It’s only a tie,” the kid said. “I have others, and I know what Adam and his friends are like.”

“Hard to miss it, when they’ve knocked you over and started kicking you in the ribs,” Jason said, more harshly than he’d initially intended. This kid had been the only one who’d done _anything_ to help him, and he wasn’t all that big. No chance he took on four kids the size of the ones who’d beat up Jason.

“You’re not the first one they’ve picked on,” the kid said seriously. At least he didn’t take offense at the drop of a hat, which Jason couldn’t say for everyone in this hell pit of a school. “If you need somewhere safe at lunchtimes, there’s always journalism club. Ms Murphy runs it. She’s better than most of the teachers here.”

_Journalism_ club? Oh boy. Still, it was something. Jason had investigated his volunteering options, and just about everything he thought was worth doing only ever took college students - homework clubs for poor kids, English classes for immigrants and refugees, office work for one of the very few legal clinics that helped people for free. College, college, college. Eighteen years old at a minimum. Jason wanted to be doing something useful _now_. And not just helping in the soup kitchen an afternoon a week with the rest of the rich and middle class kids who got it into their heads that they should do something with daddy’s money.

Still, it’d take up school time, it was something potentially useful, and maybe even socially conscious. Maybe. Most of the kids here were pretty clueless. If it was out of the way of the worst bullies, it wasn’t to be dismissed out of hand, and something he could take to Bruce as proof he was making an effort. Or to a college application.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. He already knew he’d go along, for lack of anything better to do. Except read, and Bruce’s library was better than the school’s anyway. “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Jason Todd.”

“I know,” the kid said. “Everyone knows who you are, Mr Todd.”

“Jason,” Jason said. “I’m not a fucking teacher.”

Strangely, the kid didn’t react to the curse. It had slipped out, on Jason’s part, and it wasn’t the first time. When he used language like that, a lot of these nice rich kids stared as though Jason had outright pulled down his pants. Not this one. “Jason,” the kid repeated. “My name’s Tim. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jason echoed.

“I’ll show you where we meet, if you’re interested,” Tim said. “I know Adam’s not the only person who’s bullied you here.”

Jason wasn’t one to turn down local knowledge of hiding spots, and it was just a good thing for Tim here that he was used to people mysteriously knowing what he’d been doing with his life. “Lead on,” he said. “You seem pretty well informed about who’s beating up who at lunch break.”

“Journalism club,” Tim said, with a trace of a smile. “Let’s just say knowing what’s going on is encouraged.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally. Argh. I'm so sorry for the wait. I can't promise the next chapter will be any quicker, since I've had much less time to write in the last few months and that doesn't look like changing until the end of the year, but progress is still being made. Thanks everyone for your patience and comments/kudos/bookmarks!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks everyone for reading and whatever feedback you leave! Looking forward to posting more of this one.


End file.
